


stars, hide your fires

by kosy (orphan_account)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (depending on how you want to read it), Angst, Historical—late 15th century, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene/Canon Divergence, Pining, The Utter Vastness of the Ocean, they say write what you know and i know Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 02:58:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20075005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kosy
Summary: He can feel the pull of the riptide, even in water like this, only a few centimeters deep. The constant, assured call of the ocean:you came from me, and, one day, you will come back.Crowley smiles to himself at that, the water rushing insistently against his fingertips. He hadn’t come from the sea, of course. But he doesn’t think he’d mind much if he had.“Crowley.”He goes still at the sound, eyes falling closed.





	stars, hide your fires

**Author's Note:**

> hey there! before we get started, this one's set sometime in the last decade of the 15th century after the Europeans made contact with South America and the Caribbean islands. while an element of the story, it's not the focus, and i don't go into any intense descriptions, but it's worth knowing going into it if it's topic you're uncomfortable with. that being said, enjoy the fic & thank you so very much for reading <3

It is worth mentioning that the instant an angel Falls, their wings cease to be meant for flying. The fire burns the feathers up in seconds, and when they do grow in again, they grow in dull and dark and, most damningly of all, clipped and useless. Long after the feathers have returned, too, the harsh scent of char remains. No, the wings aren’t meant for flying after that. They’re meant to be a cruel reminder. Even the common raven, with its black, city-smudged feathers and proclivity for subsisting on the scraps humanity throws it, is able to fly, because the common raven didn’t defy God. 

That anybody knows of.

At any rate, God has a keen sense of aesthetics, and if angels have bright, powerful wings then demons have to have dark, useless ones. If asked, most angels would say the whole wing thing was Ineffable. It wasn’t. It was aesthetics, and an inclination towards contrast. Never let it be said that She has no taste. 

For the moment, though, Crowley isn’t thinking about any of this. Crowley is far away from where he fell, specifically in what will later be called the Pacific Northwest of America, and he’s rather not thinking about much at all, or would very, very much like to be. 

He stands, barefoot and gently swaying, in cold sand. It is damp and grimy and he can feel every grain of it pressed against his toes and ankles and heels, every microorganism curling and uncurling, every drop of water draining through the topsoil into the crust of the Earth. He does not care. It’s not graceful, when he moves from one spot to another, disinclined to stay still for too long. Maybe if he was more sober that unnaturally snakelike walk would be graceful, but he quite conclusively is not. Crowley staggers toward the water like a man dying of thirst, only he doesn’t feel thirst when he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t know what he wants right now. 

He misjudges a step and has to throw out a shaking arm to the sand to stop himself from falling. His free hand wobbles and a bit of wine splashes out of the bottle. 

“Ah, _fuck,”_ he grumbles, forcing himself upright again, and rather sloppily miracles the wine back in. Some of it misses and trickles down the side; he catches it with his tongue and continues his pilgrimage toward the water. His glasses are resting precariously on the edge of a boulder a hundred meters back but they are long forgotten in the light of the moon, now glinting coldly off his stark yellow eyes. 

At the edge of the waves, Crowley stops, breathing harsh and uneven, and drops the now-emptied wine bottle into the ocean-soaked sand. It lands with a wet thud that he doesn’t even register. He is transfixed by the motion of the tide as it moves inexorably in, wave by wave by wave. The sea-foam curls in by his feet, pale in the full moon, and he lets out an undignified yelp at the sudden chill. Down by the water, the sand isn’t as fine, he observes, feeling far-removed from the thought. Here, the sand is mixed in with bits of shells broken into sharp points from being dashed against the ground by the waves. Rocks loom behind him. It feels like wilderness in a way that none of Europe has for years. The air is chilled from the sea and the oncoming fog, but Crowley doesn’t so much as shiver even as his hair stands on end. Unsteadily, he crouches down and trails a hand into the water. He can feel the pull of the riptide, even in water like this, only a few centimeters deep. The constant, assured call of the ocean: _you came from me, and, one day, you will come back._ Crowley smiles to himself at that, the water rushing insistently against his fingertips. He hadn’t come from the sea, of course. But he doesn’t think he’d mind much if he had. 

“Crowley.” 

He goes still at the sound, eyes falling closed. 

He doesn’t have to turn. He knows that voice, has known it for hundreds of years in the past and will know it for more hundreds in the future. He has heard it arguing, begrudging, bemoaning, self-effacing, restrained, drunken, congratulating, shy, furious, despairing, and so full of joy it seemed it would fall apart. He knows the way his name sounds coming from this throat in the way you can learn only through countless experiences, infinite time. He doesn’t have to look; he knows exactly who has said his name. 

But he turns and he looks because he must, because he can’t imagine not turning and looking, even knowing who he will face, and his breath catches in his throat when he sees him standing there, radiant against dark forest and dark rocks and dark sand and dark sky. “Angel. Didn’t think I’d see you here.” That’s not strictly true. Crowley knew he would see him. Knew he couldn’t expect to fly across the globe without seeing the dusty white-gold hair of this particular angel at least once. They home in on each other without even meaning to. If they were really trying, they could find each other blindfolded, deafened, insensate. It is, on almost every level, terminally irritating. 

Aziraphale’s lips purse into what could pass as a smile if Crowley didn’t know him. “Yes. Well. Here I am.” Stiffly, he makes his way from the rocks into the sand, and Crowley waits. The angel picks his way over the beach until he stands at his side and offers him a twitching, nervous smile. 

Crowley doesn’t bother returning it, just bends to retrieve the wine bottle from its place at his feet. He frowns at the bottle, which hurriedly refills itself, and then passes it to Aziraphale. He looks at it with a furrowed brow at first, as if unsure of what to do with it. Normally, Crowley would mock him. Find a way to curl his tired lips into a taunting grin. Laugh. Push the bottle closer. _Surely you haven’t forgotten what drinking is, angel? Don’t tell me you’ve repented Gluttony._

Aziraphale’s eyes flicker up to meet his and then down and away, so fast Crowley almost doesn’t catch it, and then he tips the bottle back and downs a good half of it in one go. 

“Impresssssssive,” he comments, letting his tongue linger on the _S_ more than he usually would. The angel’s brows knit together and he hands the bottle back over. Crowley rolls it around in his fingers but doesn’t take another drink. He has become painfully aware of the feeling in his chest, like some small creature with talons has found its way inside him and is starting to claw its way out. 

“Did you get a commendation for this one too?” Aziraphale’s voice is thin and quiet and _awful._

He shrugs, keeps his gaze fixed on the water, lit up and glowing under the uncaring moon. His companion makes a soft sound in response that could be dissatisfied or sympathetic or, worse, pitying, but he lets it go. 

(He had. He hadn’t even known about the whole blessed disaster until Beelzebub had burrowed out of the ground right in front of him on his way to holiday in Rome. An old tavern that he and Aziraphale had gone to once was reopening after decades of disuse and he was doing reconnaissance to see if it was worth a second trip, for old times’ sake. But that all felt rather beside the point and dangerous to mention when face-to-face with Beelzebub, Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies, who found a way to Loom over him despite being a full head shorter.

Beelzebub looked at him with eyes made of hellfire and said unto him: “Great work in the Americaszzzzzzz. Inszzpired. That one will cauzze mizzery and hatred for centuriezzz. You’ve really outdone yourself on thizz one.” 

“Right, the Americas, thank you for noticing, I do try,” Crowley said, and as soon as Beelzebub was back en route to Hell, he rushed to the nearest major city. It didn’t take much poking around to figure it out.

For the record, Christopher Columbus was supposed to be laughed out of every royal court in Europe and, following that, consigned to an extremely short lifetime of wholly mediocre jesterdom.) 

“You know, Crowley,” Aziraphale says carefully. 

“What,” Crowley replies, gaze held firmly on the rushing water. In and out like clockwork, imperfect and churning, both Planned and unplanned. The sand under his toes was once rock, worn thin by infinite time. He wiggles his toes into the earth and shivers. Sand is coating his wings now—dampened by the perpetual fog in the air, the grit clings to his feathers, and he is too exhausted to miracle it away. 

Aziraphale fluffs his feathers out against the wind that has picked up suddenly, as if sensing the presence of two beings beyond natural existence. “Oh, I don’t know. It all just seems so—unfair.” 

Crowley snorts, a sudden, righteous, and wholly unwarranted anger rising in him at the statement's obviousness, and dares to glance over to his companion. He looks worse for wear as well, hunched up against the cold, wings ragged even in their divine brightness. His eyes are still vital, but the rest of his body is smudged and lined from days of travel through storms and salt and dusty earth. The usually well-manicured nails—a constant throughout thousands of years—are dirty and uneven. 

Any spiteful barb dies in his throat. 

“You flew here, didn’t you? Didn’t take a ship or anything?” He winces at his own voice, aware, for the first time, of how rough it grates in his throat from disuse. 

Aziraphale turns to look at him, eyes flickering wide for a moment. “Well. Yes. It seemed faster.” His gaze darts away again, and Crowley wants to scream, wants to grab him by the shoulders and say _Look at me, look at me_ until he finally _listens._

“Did it,” he says flatly. “Well. Look at us now, angel.” Crowley spreads his wings wide, char-black on night-black, indicating the general situation (the razed cities on the mountaintops, the pestilence wiping out families upon families upon families, the matchlock guns and steel swords turned against spears, the young feet forced toward the silver mines, the blood-soaked soil, and _them,_ two feathered, graceful creatures standing on a beach eight thousand kilometers away), but he finds his eyes drawn back again to the wings. The feathers are twisted, wet, and dirtier than he would ever let them get normally. Reluctantly, Aziraphale looks too, extending his own wings with a wince, brighter than the moon even in their sorry state. _Strange,_ Crowley finds himself thinking, _that he would fly._

The thing was, Crowley had flown here too. 

A common misconception about angels and demons is that they can teleport. This is only true insofar as their respective bosses are willing to let them teleport. And had Aziraphale nicely asked Heaven to let him go to what could be called South America and then North America, he would have received an equally nice resounding _No._ The same went for Crowley, except without the niceness. 

By all rights, Crowley shouldn’t have been able to fly over the Atlantic Ocean and then much of the landmasses on the other side of it. He should have drowned. He shouldn’t have been able to take off at all. Simply put, he used a skill that would continue to serve him well later: he believed. Specifically, he believed he would get where he was going with the means he had. And so he did. 

A miracle is a miracle, at the end of the day. 

The demon blinks, shaking his wings a little, and Aziraphale makes a quiet, startled noise. When Crowley turns his bemused eyes to him, the angel huffs under his breath and glances down. If he concentrates, Crowley can feel the warmth radiating off of the other being and his wings, even in this damp cold that sinks through to the marrow. It’s the kind of warmth that makes his heart ache on the best of days, the kind of warmth that would have once reminded him of the gleaming halls of Heaven before it became the kind of warmth that could only ever mean _Aziraphale._

He shivers involuntarily and resists the urge to tuck his wings back in against his side. 

In the meantime, the angel has stepped closer to him, seemingly in a trance. Crowley watches him. He feels like he is forever watching him, across crowded city streets, across the table at whatever hole-in-the-wall they’re discussing the latest developments of the Arrangement, across the lip of a wine bottle, across oceans and across empty skies and across time and time and time. There’s always a certain line of propriety that Aziraphale has always taken care to toe. To a fault. It’s funny to think about an angel doing anything a point of fault, but if it would be any angel, it would be Aziraphale. Thank _somebody_ that it’s Aziraphale stationed on Earth with him all those millennia ago and Aziraphale standing centimeters from him now, ever-inching towards that line. 

“Your wings, dear boy,” the angel murmurs, and he traces a finger across the edge of a primary feather. 

Crowley, caught between the two overpowering, primal urges of fight and flight, goes absolutely still. 

Aziraphale doesn’t seem to register it. “They’re… clipped. Oh, Crowley…” His hand continues along his wing, brushing over primary, secondary, tertiary feathers. He can feel the miracles buzzing under the other being’s skin, equal and opposite and absolutely the same as his. It burns but doesn’t hurt. 

“That’s what happens when you Fall, angel,” Crowley bites out, whole body coiled so tightly he feels he might burst. “It all just—” He cuts himself off with a furious hiss, and the angel flinches back. 

“I’m sorry. Of course. I wasn’t thinking. It must—I imagine it must have hurt?” His voice sounds wrong and his face is twisted up in sympathetic pain and something more and he is still devastating in every sense of the word, here at the coastline on what must be the edge of the world. 

He still doesn’t move, wings still extended, visibly trembling. “Yes. It does.”

Thousands of kilometers south, people are turning their faces skywards, searching for the touch of gods who have abandoned them. They die with the certainty that they are completely and utterly alone. 

Slowly, deliberately, Aziraphale moves forward again, bringing up his hand to rest gently against the side of Crowley’s face, and stays, unmoving. Crowley jolts and moves a desperate hand to grab Aziraphale’s wrist, like a drowning man, holding it there. He can feel his breath rushing in and out, in and out. The waves lap cold against his ankles. The moon waits distant and unemotional above. 

Snakes can’t cry. The structure of their eyes and ducts ensures that tears simply don't overflow the eyelids. But Crowley is not a snake, not properly; snakes can’t feel love, and this—_this—_

He forces himself to hold still, eyes fluttering closed. The warmth is overwhelming. It feels like a miracle within itself; he wonders if this is the first time in all these years that Aziraphale has touched him with meaning, if this is the first time he let himself be touched. 

Gently, as if afraid he will scream or sob or bite, the angel pulls him forward, wrapping surprisingly strong and solid arms around him, and they fall slowly to their knees in the grit and mud, still holding on. Crowley isn’t sure who collapsed first, only that this is where they are now. 

The angel runs one hand up and down the inside of his arm, fingers on his wrist, and a low, shuddering gasp escapes Crowley. _Why now?_ he thinks wildly, again and again. _Why now? Year after wretched year of silence and avoidance and stiff upper lip, and now this? This crumbling at the shore of the Pacific, miles away from any other living soul? Now he holds me like the world will steal me away?_

Even with the doubts and misgivings, Crowley lets himself tilt forward into the angel, who makes a soft noise of acceptance, moving a hand to touch his head. It would almost be calming if his heart wasn’t racing. 

“Why are you here?” he croaks out, fumbling over the words as his mind staggers on, leaving him behind. _Why? We’re enemies—Adversaries—you’ve said it yourself thousands of times, called me a serpent with your own tongue, quarreled with me enough times to turn heads in Heaven over your Wrath, and still given me enough shreds of kindness and genuine _affection_ to keep me crawling back, century after century—_

There is a long pause, and Aziraphale’s fingers keep combing through his salt-tangled hair. 

The expanding feeling in his chest is overwhelming, and he tamps down on the upwelling of fierce, unspeakable emotion with a strangled noise. “Well? Is it to _thwart_ me? To lecture me?” 

The angel laughs, incongruent with Crowley’s harsh, alcohol-blurred growl, and even the wry laugh is warm. “No, Crowley.”

“Why, then?” He wants to snarl at himself for how broken his own words sound, and he digs his nails into his palm.

“Crowley, I am here because you needed me. And because—well, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.” Hesitant, fragile, afraid. Crowley pushes his forehead into the juncture of Aziraphale's neck and shoulder, inhales haltingly, and closes his eyes. He understands.

It is not, exactly, what he wanted to hear. But it’s something. It’s _something,_ something sacrosanct, untouchable by Heaven or Hell or anybody at all except him and the angel.

The fog is close and cool around their faces and, as one, they raise their wings in a shield against the world.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you again for reading!
> 
> some notes: 
> 
> \- i figure this can either be interpreted as a missing scene—just another moment from their millennia of knowing each other—or a canon divergence, considering how unrestrained aziraphale is here compared to how he acts in similar time periods shown in the tv adaptation. 
> 
> \- i absolutely stole the title from Macbeth. thank you Shakespeare 
> 
> \- while it feels unwise to admit weakness, this is definitely my first time writing good omens fic! it was fun playing around with voices, characterization, and interaction in ways i haven't before, and the Whole Experience of writing it was really great 
> 
> \- this fic was written in no small part due to my all-consuming love of the coast of the Pacific Northwest, and it was about damn time i set some of my writing there. 
> 
> \- many thanks to @arachnistar, who encouraged me to write this fic and read it over as she's done with so many of my other fics. 
> 
> \- if you're interested, my tumblr is @akosyy! absolutely feel free to come and talk to me
> 
> \- please comment and kudos if you enjoyed (or see a glaring mistake, lol)! thank you (yet again) for reading :)


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